Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Last night, which was Sunday, June 17th, I finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ... thankfully.

The book was pretty much as I remembered it in terms of tone: very depressing.  The entire book was a lesson in moody teenage drama.  However, I learned something new this time around.  I realized that Harry's incredibly down-trodden and pissy mood the entire book (excluding a few rare times where he did smile actually) was due to the fact that Harry is a horcrux.

It's not even that Harry and Voldemort are "connected".  That barely scrapes the surface of what is going on in Harry.  A scene from the movie that, sadly, isn't in the book is a conversation between Harry and Sirius, where Harry asks Sirius if he's turning "bad", if he's becoming like Voldemort because he always feels so angry and frustrated about everything.  Sirius explains to Harry that people aren't inherently good or bad.  It's the things that we do that make us such, one or the other.

This is the crux (pun intended) of the whole book.  Voldemort eventually learns the Harry has the ability to see in to his (Voldy's) mind during times of hightened emotion (angrer or pleasure).  With that, he convinces Harry that he's captured Sirius and is torturing him (Sirius) to get Harry to come to The Department of Mysteries.

So as a plot device, I get Harry's mood now.  It totally makes sense.  BUT, I truly hate hate hate the plot of this book.  There is one glaring hole in it that I cannot stand.

The prophechy is contained in a glass sphere that is held in The Deparment of Mysteries in the Ministry of Magic.  The only people allowed to remove the sphere containing the prophecy are those of which the prophecy speaks.

Asked in the book by who I don't remember is why Voldemort doesn't just go get it himself?

Seriously!  Why doesn't he?!  What the fuck?!  When Harry shows up with his crew, the Ministry is EMPTY.  There isn't a single living soul in there until we find out there are Death Eaters present.

Oh so the Death Eaters found it okay to be in there, but Voldemort didn't?  Voldemort, who is probably a master of disguise and concealment when it comes to shit like this, won't go in there, by himself WHEN THE PLACE IS FUCKING DESERTED?!

The prophecy is also absolutely useless to Voldemort, too!  Even though he didn't hear the rest of the prophecy, he's fulfilled it now and the only thing he can gleen from it is the fact that either him or Harry will have to die in order of the other to continue living.  He's already hell-bent on killing Harry anyway so why the fuck is that even important?  Oh wait, it's not.

So the plot point that thoroughly irritates me in this entire book is why Voldemort tricked Harry at all and why the hell didn't he just go down there and get the damn prophecy himself?  When the entire place is completely deserted and the DEATH EATERS MANAGED TO GET IN UNDETECTED as well as SIX FIFTEEN-SIXTEEN YEAR OLD KIDS, why wouldn't Voldemort just pop on in, find the sphere, and head out.  Nice and clean.

And fo realz, why did Sirius have to die?  There is no point.  All it serves is to make Harry even pissier and moodier and angstier than he already is.

For some reason, I thought Harry was the only person who could pick up the sphere with the prophecy in it, but now I think that's wrong.  The prophecy has both Voldemort and Harry as its subjects.  So, I'm almost positive either one of them could have picked it up.  Maybe Voldy didn't know which one it was, or where it was for that matter.

But then how was Harry having dreams about number ninety-seven?  Voldemort was planting those visions in him, he (Voldy) had to know which prophechy sphere it was.

What bothers me more is that Voldemort does show up eventually, but only until after all the damage is done.  What a big chicken-shit.  Dumbledore shows up and just about kicks his ass, and he turns tail and runs when the fight goes south for him.  Yeah, that's cute.  Show up when it isn't important any longer (prophecy sphere was shattered at that point) and get in a fight with your second-in-line arch nemesis, the most powerful wizard ever.

Voldemort is an idiot.  He could have kept ALL of those Death Eaters out of Azkaban again if he hadn't had them do his dirty work.  He could have just taken the damn prophecy sphere himself, listened to it, put it back and poofed away again.  DUMB.

So yeah, I hate this book, and hate that Sirius died.  Oh and I hate it when Harry and Ron don't listen to Hermione.  That is incredibly annoying, too.

Note: This is being posted nearly half a month after finishing it.  I was in Canada when I finished it and immediately started in on Half-Blood Prince.  I'm almost done with that one, probably will finish today and do the write-up.